New Map Of Moon Titan Reveals It Has A Sea Level Similar To Earth

Titan, Saturn’s giant satellite, is more Earth-like than previously thought.

Previous observations have shown that Titan has a dense atmosphere and stable liquid on its surface.

Of course, its seas and lakes are not made of water, but methane and ethane.

Now, researchers have found a new way in which this distant alien satellite looks disturbingly like our planet: it has sea level, a constant average elevation in relation to gravitational attraction.

The new study, based on data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, finds that Titan’s seas are constantly rising relative to their gravitational pull, just like Earth’s oceans.

Ligeia Mare, a look at the second largest known body of liquid on the Surface of Saturn’s moon Titan.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

It seems that the smallest lakes on Titan appear at elevations several hundred meters higher than sea level.

On Earth, lakes are also commonly found at high altitudes.

The highest lake navigable by large ships, the Titicaca, located at more than 3,700 meters above sea level.

The new study suggests that elevation is important because Titan’s liquid bodies appear to be connected below the surface in something like an aquifer system on Earth.

The hydrocarbons seem to flow below the surface of the moon in a similar way as water flows through porous underground rock or gravel on our planet, which means that nearby lakes communicate with each other and share a common liquid level.

A rendered size-comparison sheet between the Planet Earth, the Moon, and Saturn’s Moon Titan.

Image Credit: Shutterstock.

“We’re measuring the elevation of a liquid surface on another body 10 astronomical units away from the sun to an accuracy of roughly 40 centimeters,” explains Alex Hayes, of Cornell University (New York).

“Because we have such amazing accuracy we were able to see that between these two seas the elevation varied smoothly about 11 meters, relative to the center of mass of Titan, consistent with the expected change in the gravitational potential. We are measuring Titan’s geoid. This is the shape that the surface would take under the influence of gravity and rotation alone, which is the same shape that dominates Earth’s oceans.”

Much of the study was based on the data obtained by the Cassini radar instrument.

A new topographic map published in Geophysical Research Letters offered new insight into Titan.

The map exposed several new features on Titan, including new mountains, none of more than 700 meters in elevation.

It also offered a global view of the highs and lows of its topography, which allowed scientists to confirm that two places in the equatorial region of Titan which are in fact depressions that could be ancient dry seas or cryovolcanic flows.

The map also revealed that Titan is a bit more flattened than previously known, suggesting that there is more variability in the thickness of its crust than previously thought.

Despite the fact that we have learned much about Titan in recent years, only 9 percent of Titan has been mapped in high-resolution, while around 30 percent was imaged in lower resolution.

Featured image credit: Shutterstock.

{ https://www.ancient-code.com/ }

22-01-2018 om 11:51 geschreven door peter  

Mindbending White And Green Balls Of Light Spotted Over Siberia Leaving Locals Terrified

Russia has been hit by a wave of reports of a giant UFO in the sky last night with spectacular pictures of an enormous glowing ball illuminating northern Siberia. Social media erupted with claims of 'aliens arriving' and locals in far flung parts of the country told of 'shivers down their spines'.

While the source of the light remains unclear, some have suggested that it was the the trace of a rocket launched by the Russian military that caused this extraordinary phenomenon in the night sky.Vasily Zubkov posted: 'I went out to smoke a cigarette and thought it was the end of the world.'
The extraordinary scenes were captured by leading Siberian photographer Sergey Anisimov in the town of Salekhard which straddles the Arctic Circle.
'I was taken aback for a few minutes, not understanding what was happening,' he said.’ The glowing ball rose from behind the trees and moved in my direction. My first thought was about the most powerful searchlight, but the speed of changing everything around changed the idea of what was happening. The ball began to turn into an arc and gradually dissipated.'
After the multi-coloured light show was over he went home to find local children as young as five in the yard babbling about 'aliens' and 'the portal to another dimension', he said.
Some 520 miles further east, another photographer Alexey Yakovlev admitted to feeling scared as he witnessed the UFO spectacle at Strezhevoi, in the north of Tomsk region, reported The Siberian Times.
'At first I thought - it is such a radiance of such an unusual form, round in shape. But gradually the ball began to expand, it became clear that this is not some radiance and it became scary. It's good that I was not alone....a group of people cannot hallucinate.' On social media, Anastasia Boldyreva posted simply: 'Aliens arrived.

'The were many similar messages. Nurgazy Taabaldiev claimed: 'It's a gap in the space-time continuum.

While the source of the light has not been confirmed, not all are convinced it was a Russian rocket test.
Some local experts suggest it may have been caused by the Northern lights.But the most common theory is that Russian strongman Vladimir Putin had chosen this moment to frighten the West with grandiose military exercises by his strategic nuclear forces.
Putin personally oversaw the launch of four nuclear-capable ballistic missiles as part of a training exercise for Russia's strategic nuclear forces, the Kremlin said on Friday, the Interfax news agency reported.
The test launches, conducted last night, involved land, air, and submarine-based ballistic missiles, Russia's defence ministry said in a separate statement.
The ministry said a Topol intercontinental ballistic missile had been test fired from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia, hitting a target at the Kura military testing range on the Kamchatka Peninsula thousands of kilometres (miles) away.  

It was the likely the traces of one of these rockets - capable of carrying nuclear missiles - that caused this extraordinary phenomenon in the night sky, say the Russian media. As photographer Mr Yakovlev accurately guessed: 'It seems I accidentally shot the launch of a secret space rocket from Plesetsk'.
Nigel Watson, author of the UFO Manual, told MailOnline: 'This looks amazing and it is not surprising the sight of it caused witnesses to think of aliens and the opening of a portal to another dimension.

'These fantastic possibilities are shot down by the prosaic explanation that this strange light phenomena was caused by the testing of an intercontinental missile.
'This seems like a poor explanation for something so spectacular but other rocket launches have caused similar spectacles. 'In particular, in December 2009 a stunning spiralling light was seen over Norway, which was caused by a failed Russian missile test.
'They may not be of an alien origin but we can certainly admire their beauty, even if they are caused by weapons of mass destruction.' A similar light was seen in the skies over Norway in December 2009, which was caused by a failed missile launch.
Speaking to Barents Observer at the time, Dr Truls Lynne Hansen, a researcher at the Tromso Geophysical Observatory, said: 'The missile has probably come out of control and exploded.

'The peculiar spiral shaped light pattern comes from reflection of the sun in the leaking fuel.' 

Via Dailymail

{ http://www.thespaceacademy.org/ }

22-01-2018 om 01:52 geschreven door peter  

Dark UFO Over Crete, Does The World Need To Worry About Invasion? Jan 11, 2018, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: January 11, 2018

Location of sighting: Rethymno, Crete

News source: 

http://china.greekreporter.com/希腊克里特岛惊现怪异飞碟云/

 

This UFO cloaked in a cloud was seen over Crete last week. You can see that its breaking through the clouds. Don't be fooled by these cloaked craft. Aliens are highly intelligent and often believe that human intelligence is incredibly inferior to them. Thus, humans will often assume the cloud is just a cloud. However, we at UFO Sightings Daily know different. Here it almost looks like an invasion. Very dark, almost sinister looking. 

Scott C. Waring

 

News states: 

Photographer Yiannis Gkikas snapped a rare scene on January 11 in Rethymno, Crete, Greece, when a huge cloud of disk-shaped aircraft appeared in the sky. The group's photos were subsequently posted on the Greek weather website Meteokrites.

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

22-01-2018 om 01:22 geschreven door peter  

Long Glowing UFO Seen Over City In Santos, Brazil In Jan 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: January 2018
Location of sighting: Santos, Brazil

This UFO was reported by SecureTeam10 of Youtube. A UFO moves across the night sky. Five bright center lights glowing all the while and some smaller lights along its sides. The video was taken long ways on the phone instead of sideways. Thats another sign thats its real. The way it shoots off is a rare thing to see on video. Most UFO reports only show the craft hovering, but here we see it moving from left to right and then shots off right again. 

This is an important video that shows how a UFO moves so easily, so perfectly, without making rounded turns. Tell us your thoughts on this video in the comments below please. 

Scott C. Waring

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

22-01-2018 om 01:14 geschreven door peter  

Alien UFO Hidden In Cloud Moves Over Thailand Frightening Residents This Week, Jan 14, 2018, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: January 14, 2018
Location of sighting: Mount Taishan, Thailand
News source: 

http://sd.dzwww.com/sdnews/201801/t20180114_16913600.htm

Captured over Thailand this week was a UFO cloaked as a cloud. Why would an alien race disguise their craft as a cloud? First they have rules, rules about intrumpting without the governments consent. Second they have no intention to frighten people, they instead want to get as close as possible to the ground so that they can scan the inhabitants and their daily routines. I think the cloud cloak is actually pure genius on their part. 
Scott C. Waring

News states: 
On the morning of the 14th, when many people are still asleep, the photographer Liu Guoqing of Thailand captured the wonderful scene in the sky. A cloud of similar UFO UFO, appeared in Mount Taishan, against the colorful sky under the glow. Dai top, many people also photographed this group "UFO cloud." 

It is understood that this god-like cloud of flying saucer, the scientific name pod cloud, is a natural phenomenon of weather, often when the humid air over the mountains appeared. If the temperature of the air drops over the mountains, the moisture in the air condenses into a pod cloud. 

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

22-01-2018 om 01:06 geschreven door peter  

150 Meter UFO Hovers Over Volcano Mouth In Mexico, Jan 15, 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: January 15, 2018
Location of sighting: Popocatepetl, Mexico
Facebook video:

 https://www.facebook.com/diario.cambio1/videos/918076715018976/


A Facebook user reported that they witnessed a dark UFO disk hovering over a volcano called Popocatelpetl in Mexico this week. This particular volcano is notorious for its UFO sightings over the last decade. I have long believed that below this volcano sits an underground alien base. The base is about 4-5km below the surface.  This volcano has a mouth that is 600 meters across. Now compare the mouth area with the size of the UFO. You will see this UFO is about 25-30% the size of the volcano mouth. Therefore the UFO is 150 to 200 meters across. Thats one big craft. 

Now since this is Facebook, its not so easy to post a video right here for you, but please click the link above and watch it. It is fantastic!
Scott C. Waring

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

22-01-2018 om 00:55 geschreven door peter  

WAT GEBEURDE ER IN HEMELSNAAM BOVEN  MICHIGAN, USA? ( VIDEO )

Op 16 januari 2018, net na acht uur 's avonds, werden inwoners van de Amerikaanse staat Michigan opgeschrikt door een meteoriet die met een knal explodeerde. 

Vrijwel tegelijkertijd gebeurde er een aantal anders mysterieuze dingen zoals een lichtstraal uit de hemel en UFO's die werden gefilmd boven de bewuste locatie. 

Wat er afgelopen week gebeurde in de Amerikaanse staat Michigan is ronduit bizar te noemen. Een aantal gebeurtenissen die vrijwel tegelijk plaatsvinden en toch ogenschijnlijk niets met elkaar te maken hebben. 

Het begint net na acht uur op 16 januari 2018 wanneer duizenden mensen een vreemde lichtbol waarnemen boven de staat. Het bleek een meteoriet te zijn die met een flinke explosie uit elkaar barstte, volgens de autoriteiten. Eveneens zou deze meteoriet een aardbeving van 2.0 op de schaal van Richter hebben veroorzaakt, op ongeveer 40 kilometer afstand van Detroit.

 

Maar, dan begint het heel vreemd te worden, want ongeveer tegelijkertijd wordt een soort lichtstraal waargenomen boven de stad Taylor.

Een straal die niets te maken heeft met de meteoriet en die er als volgt uitziet.

Deze lichtstraal was te zien boven Taylor, een stad met ongeveer 65.000 inwoners. Net na dat de vreemde lichtstraal aan de hemel verscheen, brak er brand uit bij een woonhuis met garage in die plaats. 

De autoriteiten kwamen heel snel met de mededeling dat de brand niets te maken had met de meteoriet en over de vreemde lichtstraal werd al helemaal niets vermeld. Het zou allemaal veroorzaakt zijn door wat lekkende benzine uit een pick-up truck.

Echter, uit foto's die mensen ter plaatse maakten, lijkt het meer alsof er een bom is ingeslagen in het huis en garage.

Een tweede belangrijk punt is dat wetenschappers inmiddels hebben verklaard dat de aardbeving die werd gemeten niet veroorzaakt kan zijn door de meteoriet, omdat die in de lucht exploderen en geen aardschokken veroorzaken.

Een ander opvallend feit is dat het plaatsje Taylor in de laatste decennia is bezocht door drie verschillende presidenten: George W. Bush, Bill Clinton en Barack Obama. Dit geeft dan weer aanleiding om te denken dat er iets speciaals is op/in die plek, wat verder wordt bevestigd door het volgende: 

Een vrouw die in Taylor woont en het licht zag en het gerommel in de lucht hoorde, dacht in eerste instantie aan onweer, maar toen ze naar buiten keek begreep ze dat dit niet kon omdat het een vrij heldere koude nacht was. Ze besloot toen om de beelden van haar beveiligingscamera te bekijken en ze viel ze bijna van haar stoel want ze zag maar liefst vijf verschillende UFO's die heen en weer vlogen,  formaties aannamen en een en ander had niets met een meteoriet te maken.

De vrouw die de opname had gemaakt, besloot om deze te delen met de rest van de wereld en plaatste de beelden op haar YouTube-kanaal, Lucky Puppie, en normaal gesproken staan daar alleen beelden op van allerlei honden. 

De beelden van de UFO's stonden er ook niet lang, want de volgende dag waren ze plotsklaps verdwenen. Of ze dit zelf heeft gedaan of dat de video werd verbannen, is niet duidelijk.

Gelukkig had iemand een kopie gemaakt, zodat we ook zelf de bijzondere bewegende beelden kunnen zien. 



Duidelijk is dat er die bewuste dinsdagavond heel wat meer gebeurde dan "alleen maar" een meteoriet. Iets kwam uit de hemel en veroorzaakte een verwoest huis en garage op de grond. Iets dat heel sterk doet denken aan het soort laserstralen die werden waargenomen tijdens de recente branden in Californië. 

Daarnaast rijst de vraag waarom drie verschillende presidenten zo nodig naar Taylor moesten en eveneens of dit alles misschien verband houdt met de ruimte-oorlog waar we onlangs over schreven.

{ http://www.niburu.co/ }

22-01-2018 om 00:45 geschreven door peter  

The 2-mile-long Marree Man is the second largest geoglyph in the world but nobody knows who made it

Boban Docevski

The first thought that comes to mind when beholding it is that this enormous piece of land art was made by the ancients to serve as a sign for the gods, or as a mythical representation of some tribal hero. But this is not the case with the Marree Man, the second largest geoglyph in the world. It was discovered recently after a plane flew over it in 1998, and it was probably created recently as well. The only problem is, nobody knows who made it or why.

Although it was the 1990s and information about somebody doing something traveled fast, somehow an individual or a group of artists managed to get to this hardly accessible part of South Australia, on the plateau of Finnis Springs, just outside an Australian military base called Woomera Prohibited Area, and created this huge geoglyph with a perimeter of 17 miles. It was definitely a massive undertaking that demanded a lot of labor, and it is strange how nobody noticed–especially because it was close to a big military base.

On June 26, 1998, Trec Smith, a local pilot, flew from the nearby town of Marree to Cooper Pedy and noticed the drawing that was spread across the whole plateau. Later, a hotel in the area claimed that they received an anonymous fax with the coordinates of the geoglyph. Soon the Marree Man geoglyph became headline news across Australia. A big part of the fascination lay in the fact that nobody knew who actually made it. It seemed like some extraterrestrials came and did it in a few seconds.

Marree Man

So what is the Marree Man? Visually speaking, the Marree man is a depiction of a man who holds a boomerang (or a woomera–a throwing stick that was used to chase away birds). Upon examination, it was discovered that the lines of the Marree man were about 8 to 12 inches deep and 114 feet wide. The whole figure is an astonishing 2.6 miles long, and it takes up a perimeter of 17 miles.

The following year, the media was anonymously informed that a small plaque was buried just 16 feet south of Marree Man’s nose. The plaque turned out to be a little American flag with Olympic rings over it. The short text on the plaque reads:

“In honour of the land they once knew. His attainments in these pursuits are extraordinary; a constant source of wonderment and admiration.”

Research was done on this quote, and it was discovered that it comes from a 1946 book written by H. H. Finlayson called The Red Centre. The book is about the hunters of the Pitjantjatjara tribe–the tribe that lives around the Uluru rock formation. These particular words come from a chapter in which the author describes how wallabies were hunted with the use of throwing sticks. The section also describes the look of the hunters, who were naked and had initiation marks on their bodies.

The media received another anonymous message with the name of the artwork. Supposedly it was called “Stuart’s Giant,” after John McDouall Stuart, the famous explorer who led the first expedition across Australia.

Reception of the newly created geoglyph was mixed but mainly positive. A lot of people wanted it to stay. After all, it started bringing tourists to the area. One of the local newspapers, the Advertiser, wrote that the land drawing should be made permanent. Because of the weather conditions in the region, the Marree Man started to erode and disappear. By 2013 it was barely visible, so people demanded that the lines should be made deeper; down to the white chalk layer beneath the ground. Those that were against it, like Dorothy Kotz, the Minister for Environment and Heritage at the time, described the figure as “environmental vandalism.” David Ruthman, who was the Minister for Aboriginal affairs called it “graffiti.”

There are two main theories about the author of this modern geoglyph. According to some people, it was made by Aboriginal artist Bardius Goldberg, who died in 2002. He was the perfect suspect. He lived in Alice Springs and had often discussed his wish to create a piece of art that would be visible from space. One of his friends said that he received $10,000 during the time when the figure was discovered. Goldberg never confirmed nor denied this claims.

Another theory is that the geoglyph was made by a group from the United States. This is possible because of several facts. First of all, the description of the figure is written in feet instead of meters; also, the term Aboriginal “reservations” is mentioned, and this word is never used to describe the Aborigines. Another clue is a jar that was found buried near the Marree Man. In it, an American flag, together with a satellite picture of the geoglyph, was found. There was also a note in which the infamous Branch Davidian sect was mentioned. Despite all the clues, the creation of the Marree Man is still a mystery.

Related story from us: Archaeologists rediscover one of the oldest known Peruvian geoglyphs, that of a 2,000-year-old killer whale once worshiped as a deity

Mystery aside, this geoglyph is still an attraction. In 2016, its decaying lines were fixed with the help of a satellite-guided tool. Now it is visible again, and although the area is off-limits, those who want can take a flight over it and see it.

{ https://www.thevintagenews.com/ }

22-01-2018 om 00:18 geschreven door peter  

Amazing video of a UFO over Bangor, Ireland 20-Feb-2013

{ http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

21-01-2018 om 23:52 geschreven door peter  

{ http://nationalufocenter.com/ }

21-01-2018 om 23:26 geschreven door peter  

Filer’s Files #3 – 2018 Abductions and Alien Contact - PART II

21-01-2018 om 23:08 geschreven door peter  

WHY NASA'S MARS PLANS ARE GETTING CONTROVERSIAL

Elizabeth Rayne

If NASA is ever going to put boots on Mars (and possibly other alien worlds), it won’t happen by just deciding to blast a rocket off to the Red Planet one day. The question is whether a moon-orbiting space station is the right way to get one boot print closer.

With the ISS retiring in 2028, NASA needs a phase two, as NBC Machobserved. The space agency sees the Deep Space Gateway (DSG) in its future. Humans will fly beyond low-Earth orbit for the first time in 45 years to live on the DSG, where they will start building and testing the equipment and technology that will eventually launch Martian missions.

We can’t just land on Mars without hanging out far from Earth for any extended period of time. There is still too much that science doesn’t know about the long-term effects of deep space on physical and mental health—imagine spending a year on a floating space station with nowhere near the leg room of the ISS, a quarter million miles from Earth. But. It will be a launchpad for future missions we can now only imagine in sci-fi movies.

Exactly how necessary is all this? When a Nobel-winning theoretical physicist like Steven Weinberg insists that the ISS is nothing but space junk, you have to wonder.

We're anxious to land on Mars—but first, the moon.

"No important science has come out of it,” Weinberg told Space.com of the satellite that has been orbiting Earth since 1998, and thinks the same of the DSG though NASA begs to differ. “I could almost say no science has come out of it. And I would go beyond that and say that the whole manned spaceflight program, which is so enormously expensive, has produced nothing of scientific value."

Weinberg believes that only robotic missions like the Mars rovers have contributed anything useful to science. If humans actually walking on the moon (which he thinks of as more than a publicity stunt than anything else) made people gasp at their TV screens back in the ‘60s, it no longer has the same shock value. We’re exorbitantly expensive to keep alive out there, not to mention that we radiate too much heat and actually want to go home. Robots don’t come with those hangups.

Does NASA need to second-guess its priorities? There are obviously ethical implications to studying human survival in deep space when you’re exposing astronauts to more than just microgravity. There is no sunblock that can possibly guard against he harmful effects of high-energy cosmic rays and other kinds of killer radiation. Beaming help up from Earth would not be an option in a medical emergency. Any intervention from the home planet would take weeks to reach lunar orbit, and by then, things could happen that you might rather not want to think about.

 NASA's Space Launch System, seen in this artist's rendering, is billed as the world's most powerful rocket. NASA

So who do we listen to, the space agency or the super-physicist? Nobody is really sure, but one thing we can probably agree on for now is that NASA’s mentality of taking the Mars thing in stages is less scary than Elon Musk’s ambitions to make humans Martians even sooner. 

(via NBC Mach)

{ http://www.syfy.com/ }

21-01-2018 om 22:17 geschreven door peter  

Blue salt crystals on meteorites stoke conversation about extraterrestrial life

By Stephen Schmidt 

{ https://www.pri.org/ }

21-01-2018 om 22:05 geschreven door peter  

Future shock: Mysterious signal from a galaxy far, far away could just be an alien soap opera

Bill Bain

Bill Bain

THE ALIEN SIGNAL FROM A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY

A CACOPHONY of radio and television signals transmitted over the past 100 years have effectively turned Earth into an astral megaphone, violating the tranquility of infinity with incessant pulses of sound and vision. Our naked exhibitionism is certainly worthy of an interstellar Asbo, with each and every broadcast escaping into space to pollute the entire galaxy.

Scientists Detect ‘Alien Signals’ From Galaxy 3 BILLION Light Years Away

Theoretically, any reasonably advanced alien civilisation could easily tune into this cosmic UK Gold for a comprehensive insight into Earth’s last century. It’s estimated that our oldest transmissions – the first radio broadcasts – have already reached a few hundred “nearby” stars. Prepare for imminent attack when Piers Morgan’s voice finally reaches Alpha Centauri.

Astrophysicist Carl Sagan once wryly theorised that the first television broadcast with a signal powerful enough to reach extraterrestrials would have been Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies. If this had somehow failed to profoundly depress our cosmic neighbours, perhaps watching the actual Neighbours – and remember the same episode was often repeated twice a day – may have given them no other option than to declare war. Or at least relegate us to the lowest rung on the ladder of universal consciousness.

Yet transmissions work both ways. It’s no secret that even this primitive outpost has been picking up radio broadcasts from deep space for decades. Interpreting and explaining them is another matter, with scientists taking decades to figure out that the vast majority of interstellar radio signals naturally emanate from neutron stars called pulsars. Yet major anomalies persist – the most famous example being a mysterious transmission picked up by astronomers last year.

In August, the discovery of FRB 121102 was excitedly announced – the first-ever “fast radio burst” that actually repeated itself. This was an unprecedented and deeply unusual phenomenon. The insistency of the signal made it possible for the world’s most powerful telescopes to discover where it originated, which turned out to be a galaxy far, far away – three billion light years from Earth. All that existed on Earth when these signals were first sent was Kirk Douglas.

Furthering the mystery, this perplexing broadcast very recently went into overdrive, with unimaginable amounts of focused energy being manically hurled through space and time – like Thor’s hammer being attacked by a woodpecker. The only solid fact scientists can deduce is that it is fortunate we’re so far away – a single millisecond-long blast radiates the same energy as our sun does in a day. “If this was even on the distant side of our own galaxy, it would completely disrupt radio on Earth and saturate signals on smartphones,” said Shami Chatterjee, senior research associate in astronomy at Cornell University. “Whatever is happening is scary. We would not want to be there.”

The Alien Wow Signal, 72 sec, at 1420.4556 MHz, New View! Aug 1977, UFO Sighting News.

Speculation on the signal’s source focuses around new types of black hole, colliding stars, and, yes, the involvement of extraterrestrials. Not so far out a theory as it seems – these types of signal are exactly the type of universal emission scientists would expect from civilisations like our own. Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Centre, agrees. “We cannot rule out the ET hypothesis for FRBs,” he stressed.

With the FRB 121102 signal now three billion years old, any civilisation capable of transmitting it will be long gone, having either destroyed itself, being replaced by machines or incinerated by their dying sun. It’s certainly a sobering thought that we may soon meet a similar fate, and all to prove we ever existed might be an infinite loop of America’s Greatest Ever Police Chases 5 projected across the stars.

WE’LL ALL DOLITTLE IN THE FUTURE

L ET’S partake in a wee thought experiment. Most of us have casually swatted a fly at one time or another, but would you have beat it to death with a mallet had it been the size of a dog? If its blood spurted across your face with each blow, if you saw its wings twitch as it died and then had to dispose of its broken body – would you have regretted your actions?

Perhaps you’d admit you had been hoodwinked by a false perception, convinced of your larger physical form’s superiority, your prevailing intelligence, your privileged place in Elton John’s circle of life. In universal terms, all these factors are limited to human ego and ultimately meaningless.

Such flimsy, fascist excuses for casual brutality can perhaps be excused as an evolutionary hangover, where the desire to survive long enough to pass on DNA is married to an instinctive trait to destroy what is other. The wonder of human consciousness, it seems, evolved hand in hand with a desire to dominate. It’s a virus swimming in our collective psyche, responsible for most of our species’ shortcomings ... but perhaps it's impossible to drown.

Yet it seems a new dawn of compassion and empathy could soon be on the horizon. This is due to a technological breakthrough with the potential to burst our inflated egos once and for all. It seems the only way for all creatures great and small to earn our respect isn’t to increase their size … but to give them a voice.

The human desire to talk to animals like Dr Dolittle seems a whimsy long relegated to science-fiction, but Professor Con Slobodchikoff of Northern Arizona University not only believes such communication is possible – but also that he’s figured it out. He is currently busy putting the finishing touches to a sophisticated artificial intelligence program that allegedly translates the vocalisations and body language of various animals into English.

Slobodchikoff has spent 30 years researching how differing animal species communicate – in particular prairie dogs – and his startling conclusion is that most, if not all, biological creatures use sophisticated languages.

Now, he plans to break down the walls between Earth’s myriad species – starting with our pets. Slobodchikoff’s company, Zoolingua, has already started stockpiling thousands of clips of cats and dogs “communicating” and AI will then translate this information into words. Will cruelty to animals stop when, like Caesar in Planet Of The Apes, they can simply say “no”? Of course not, we’re irredeemable monsters, but even hamster banter may be a seismic step up from Alexa.

And it’s not just the good professor who is homing in on an inter-species communication device. Marine biologists recently developed a dolphin “translator” that identifies individual whistles by converting them into words.

The Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry (CHAT) device has been developed by the global Wild Dolphin Project to give everyone Aqua Man’s superpowers. Researchers testing a prototype device recently confirmed its first successful use in the wild, where a bottlenose dolphin was apparently recorded talking about seaweed. Or perhaps its words were misinterpreted and it was simply warning the divers it had relieved itself in their vicinity.

IKEA ADVERT TAKES THE P**S

THE days of doctors pushing the health benefits of ciggies in newspaper ads are long gone, but TV commercials starring fit folk with great teeth guzzling cans of sugar prove the advertising industry still enjoys taking the p**s.

And like a snake swallowing its own tail, one agency went full meta last month with a magazine advert which demanded readers urinate on it for a special offer.

Featured in the otherwise innocuous pages of Swedish women’s magazine Amelia, this Ikea ad, once peed on, revealed if you were pregnant – then magically displayed a discount code for wooden cots if the result was positive. Imaginative, you’ll agree. It’s also fortunate the deep shame of handing over a urine-soaked coupon will be dulled by the shock of finding out you’re with child.

“In order to make the interactive functions of this ad work in reality, we had to make several technical advancements,” ad agency Åkestam Holst admitted with a poker face. “The pregnancy test strip was used as a starting point, but technical advancements made during the campaign also have the wider potential to improve medical diagnostics.”

Historically, major scientific progress often occurs by accident. Incidentally, it turns out I’m not pregnant, but will now be refused entry at all WH Smith stores.

One place I am now welcome, however, is Coatbridge police station, where I have been invited to attend each morning for the next five years.

{ http://www.heraldscotland.com/ }

21-01-2018 om 21:37 geschreven door peter  

The Biggest Space Stories of the Week

The Week's Top Space Stories

1. Liftoff for missile-warning satellite

2. Safety panel concerned about SpaceX

3. Crowdsourcing project finds five planets!

4. Lawmakers want to know why Zuma failed

Photo Credit: T. Masterson

5. Meteor creates earthquake-like rumbles over Michigan

Photo Credit: Samantha Cristoforetti/ESA/NAS

6. New model offers complex hurricane answers

7. Blasting space-junk is a new debris solution

8. Lava tubes could allow astronauts to access water

9. Earth's solar system is weird

{ https://www.space.com/ }

21-01-2018 om 21:21 geschreven door peter  

The duo had the same mother, but different dads

BY BRUCE BOWER 

 

MAMMA’S BOYS  Ancient Egyptian mummies known as the Two Brothers, found in these coffins, had the same mother but different fathers, DNA evidence indicates.

MANCHESTER MUSEUM, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER

A pair of ancient Egyptian mummies, known for more than a century as the Two Brothers, were actually half brothers, a new study of their DNA finds.

These two, high-ranking men shared a mother, but had different fathers, say archaeogeneticist Konstantina Drosou of the University of Manchester in England and her colleagues. That muted family tie came to light thanks to the successful retrieval of two types of DNA from the mummies’ teeth, the scientists report in the February Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. The finding highlights the importance ancient Egyptians placed on maternal lines of descent, Drosou’s group contends.

Questions have swirled about the biological backgrounds of the mummified men ever since they were found together in a tomb near the village of Rifeh in 1907. The tomb dates to ancient Egypt’s 12th Dynasty, between 1985 B.C. and 1773 B.C. Coffin inscriptions mention a female, Khnum-Aa, as the mother of both men. And both mummies are described as sons of an unnamed local governor. It has always been unclear if those inscriptions refer to the same man, but discoverers decided the mummies were full brothers, because the two were buried next to each other and had the same mother.

Over time, differences discovered in the men’s skull shapes and other skeletal features raised suspicions that the Two Brothers were not biologically related at all. And some researchers argued that the inscriptions indicating the men had the same mother were misleading.

Adding to those doubts, a 2014 paper reported differences between the two mummies’ mitochondrial DNA, suggesting one or both had no biological link to Khnum-Aa. Mitochondrial DNA typically gets inherited from the mother.

But that study extracted ancient DNA from liver and intestinal samples using a method susceptible to contamination with modern human and bacterial DNA, Drosou’s team argues. In the new work, researchers isolated and assembled short pieces of mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA from both mummies’ teeth using the latest methods. The Y chromosome determines male sex and gets passed from father to son. This approach minimizes potential contamination from modern sources (SN Online: 5/31/17).

That new DNA evidence “proves the hieroglyphic text [on the mummies’ coffins] to be accurate,” at least in saying the mummified men had the same mother, says Egyptologist and study coauthor Campbell Price, curator of the Egypt and Sudan collections at the Manchester Museum in England.

Unlike the deference given to Khnum-Aa as a named parent of both interred individuals, he says, the coffin inscriptions must refer to different fathers who were considered peripheral family members and thus left unnamed. “Power may have been transferred down the female line rather than simply by a son inheriting [high rank] from his father,” Price suggests. Khnum-Aa’s background, social standing and genetic makeup, however, remain a mystery.

Genetic evidence that two half brothers were buried in the same tomb and placed in coffins that name only their mother makes sense, says Egyptologist Joann Fletcher at the University of York in England. Many written sources from ancient Egypt show precedence to the maternal line, “from the official lists of Egypt’s early kings whose names are accompanied by those of their mothers to nonroyal individuals, who likewise cite only their mother’s name,” Fletcher explains.   

Dates of death on the mummies’ linen wrappings suggest that Khnum-Nakht died first, at around age 40, Price says. A few months later, Nakht-Ankh died at about age 60. The causes of their deaths are unknown.

Citations

• K. Drosou, C. Price and T. Brown.  The kinship of two 12th Dynasty mummies revealed by ancient DNA sequencing. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. Vol. 17, February 2018, p. 793. doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.12.025.
• C. Matheson et al. Molecular confirmation of Schistosoma and family relationship in two ancient Egyptian mummies. In H. Gill-Frerking et al., editors, Yearbook of Mummy Studies Volume 2, p. 39.

Further Reading

• H. Thompson. Mummy DNA unveils the history of ancient Egyptian hookups. Science News Online, May 31, 2017.

{ https://www.sciencenews.org/ }

21-01-2018 om 20:53 geschreven door peter  

Mystery 'UFO' filmed flying over UK

Aletha Wilkinson

English 'alien hunters' are on high alert after footage has surfaced of a series of strangely blinking lights, flashing in a misty nighttime sky.

The unusual sighting is currently under investigation by the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) in the US.

The unidentified male witness claimed he and a co-worker saw the lights in the sky.

Are these lights the work of extraterrestrials?

Source: YouTube/Secureteam10

"I went outside with my workmate to get some materials out of the van and noticed one light slowly move around the back of a building," he said in a witness statement.

“Then another one appeared from behind the building at a set distance that did not change.

“Seconds after another three appeared as if they was already there but were not lit up.”

• Shape-shifting UFO spotted over South America
• 'UFO' spotted over Queensland

The man who filmed the lights is convinced they were from a UFO.

Source: YouTube/Secureteam10

Footage taken by the eyewitness shows a series of lights slowly moving in the fog.

“At this point two lights where visible and after another minute or two, the two visible lights got further and further away," he said in his statement.

“One stopped and one seemed to carry on barely being a visible light source.”

He said they appeared to swing around again in formation.

“At this point we ran back inside the building to try and get a better view from the roof," he said.

However the thick fog prevented them from getting a better look.

“With the fog we could not see anything so ran back down at which point they where nowhere to be seen.”

The witness believes the lights cannot be accounted for, arguing the lights couldn't have been located on the ground.

"It couldn’t have been search lights shining up from the ground as we could clearly see the lights’ surface area getting wider as it shone down," he said, "meaning the light source was in the sky."

But sceptics have already weighed in to claim they're simply the lights of a crane.

ufoofinterest.org@ufoofinterest

Reading several comments from #YouTube, #Twitter & #Facebook about the alleged five #UFOs taken over #Basingstoke (@mufon case 89494), there are many people who disagree with the possible explanation (lights from a crane), forgetting misty conditions can cause misrepresentations

6:58 PM - Jan 17, 2018

• 11 Reply
•  66 Retweets
•  1616 likes

"About the five mystery lights filmed above #Basingstoke, I think could be lights from a tower/mobile crane," tweeted Scott Brando, a UFO debunker.

"There are many people who disagree with the possible explanation (lights from a crane), forgetting that misty conditions can cause misrepresentations."

Non-believers say the lights were just from a crane.

Source: Getty

A definitive list of the best UFO sightings

VIDEO Just in case you needed video proof that Extraterrestrial life exists.

Got a story tip? Send it to tips@yahoo7.com.au

Want more celebrity, entertainment and lifestyle news? Follow Be on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram

21-01-2018 om 18:58 geschreven door peter  

On January 21, 1968, in what came to be known as the Thule incident, a U.S. jet carrying 4 nuclear bombs crashed in Greenland, spreading radioactive wreckage across 3 square miles of a frozen fjord.

Cleanup crew search for radioactive debris.

Image via U.S. Air Force.

By Timothy J. Jorgensen, Georgetown University

Fifty years ago, on January 21, 1968, the Cold War grew significantly colder. It was on this day that an American B-52G Stratofortress bomber, carrying four nuclear bombs, crashed onto the sea ice of Wolstenholme Fjord in the northwest corner of Greenland, one of the coldest places on Earth. Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and the Danes were not pleased.

The bomber – call sign HOBO 28 – had crashed due to human error. One of the crew members had stuffed some seat cushions in front of a heating vent, and they subsequently caught fire. The smoke quickly became so thick that the crew needed to eject. Six of the 7 crew members parachuted out safely before the plane crashed onto the frozen fjord 7 miles west of Thule Air Base – America’s most northern military base, 700 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

The ejected gunner is helped to safety.

Image via U.S. Air Force.

The island of Greenland, situated about halfway between Washington D.C. and Moscow, has strategic importance to the American military – so much so that the United States had, in 1946, made an unsuccessful bid to buy it from Denmark. Nevertheless, Denmark, a strong ally of the United States, did allow the American military to operate an air base at Thule.

The crash severely strained the United States’ relationship with Denmark, since Denmark’s 1957 nuclear-free zone policyhad prohibited the presence of any nuclear weapons in Denmark or its territories. The Thule crash revealed that the United States had actually been routinely flying planes carrying nuclear bombs over Greenland, and one of those illicit flights had now resulted in the radioactive contamination of a fjord.

The radioactivity was released because the nuclear warheads had been compromised. The impact from the crash and the subsequent fire had broken open the weapons and released their radioactive contents, but luckily, there was no nuclear detonation.

To be specific, HOBO 28’s nuclear weapons were actually hydrogen bombs. As I explain in my book, “Strange Glow: The Story of Radiation,” a hydrogen bomb (or H-bomb) is a second-generation type of nuclear weapon that is much more powerful than the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those two bombs were “fission” bombs – bombs that get their energy from the splitting (fission) of very large atoms (such as uranium and plutonium) into smaller atoms.

In contrast, HOBO 28’s bombs were fusion bombs – bombs that get their energy from the union (fusion) of the very small nuclei of hydrogen atoms. Each of the four Mark 28 F1 hydrogen bombs that HOBO 28 carried were nearly 100 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima (1,400 kilotons versus 15 kilotons).

Fusion bombs release so much more energy than fission bombs that it’s hard to comprehend. For example, if a fission bomb like Hiroshima’s were dropped on the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., it’s likely that the White House (about 1.5 miles away) would suffer little direct damage. In contrast, if just one of the Mark 28 F1 hydrogen bombs were dropped on the Capitol building, it would destroy the White House as well as everything else in Washington, D.C. (a destructive radius of about 7.5 miles). It is for this reason that North Korea’s recent claim of achieving hydrogen bomb capabilities is so very worrisome.

After the crash, the United States and Denmark had very different ideas about how to deal with HOBO 28’s wreckage and radioactivity. The U.S. wanted to just let the bomber wreckage sink into the fjord and remain there, but Denmark wouldn’t allow that. Denmark wanted all the wreckage gathered up immediately and moved, along with all of the radioactively contaminated ice, to the United States. Since the fate of the Thule Air Base hung in the balance, the U.S. agreed to Denmark’s demands.

U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command film report on the Crested Ice project.

The clock was ticking on the cleanup, code named operation “Crested Ice,” because, as winter turned into spring, the fjord would begin to melt and any remaining debris would sink 800 feet to the seafloor. Initial weather conditions were horrible, with temperatures as low as minus 75 degrees Fahrenheit, and wind speeds as high as 80 miles per hour. In addition, there was little sunlight, because the sun was not due to rise again over the Arctic horizon until mid-February.

Groups of American airmen, walking 50 abreast, swept the frozen fjord looking for all the pieces of wreckage – some as large as plane wings and some as small as flashlight batteries. Patches of ice with radioactive contamination were identified with Geiger counters and other types of radiation survey meters. All wreckage pieces were picked up, and ice showing any contamination was loaded into sealed tanks. Most every piece of the plane was accounted for except, most notably, a secondary stage cylinder of uranium and lithium deuteride – the nuclear fuel components of one of the bombs. It was not found on the ice and a sweep of the seafloor with a minisub also found nothing. Its current location remains a mystery.

U.S. and Danish officials mark the end of the cleanup effort. Image via Royal Halloway University.

Although the loss of the fuel cylinder was perplexing and disturbing, it is a relatively small item (about the size and shape of a beer keg) and it emits very little radioactivity detectable by radiation survey meters, making it very hard to find at the bottom of a fjord. Fortunately, it is not possible for this secondary “fusion” unit to detonate on its own without first being induced through detonation of the primary “fission” unit (plutonium). So there is no chance of a spontaneous nuclear explosion occurring in the fjord in the future, no matter how long it remains there.

The successful cleanup helped to heal United States-Denmark relations. But nearly 30 years later, the Thule incident spawned a new political controversy in Denmark. In 1995, a Danish review of internal government documents revealed that Danish Prime Minister H.C. Hansen had actually given the United States tacit approval to fly nuclear weapons into Thule. Thus, the Danish government had to share some complicity in the Thule incident.

As recently as 2003, environmental scientists from Denmark revisited the fjord to see if they could detect any residual radioactivity from the crash. Was bottom sediment, seawater or seaweed radioactive, after nearly 40 years? Yes, but the levels were extremely low.

Thule Air Base survived all of the controversies over the decades but became increasingly neglected as nuclear weaponry moved away from bomber-based weapon delivery and more toward land-based and submarine-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. Nevertheless, as Thule’s bomber role waned, its importance for radar detection of incoming ICBMs grew, since a trans-Artic trajectory is a direct route for Russian nuclear missiles targeted at the United States.

In 2017, Thule got a US$40,000,000 upgrade for its radar systems due, in part, to increased concern about Russia as a nuclear threat, and also because of worries about recent Russian military forays into the Arctic. Thule Air Base thus remains indispensable to American defense, and the United States remains very interested in Greenland – and committed to maintaining good relations with Denmark.

Timothy J. Jorgensen, Director of the Health Physics and Radiation Protection Graduate Program and Associate Professor of Radiation Medicine, Georgetown University

• This article was originally published on The Conversation.
• Read the original article.

{ http://earthsky.org/ }

21-01-2018 om 18:24 geschreven door peter  

THIS IS THE MOST DANGEROUS TIME FOR OUR PLANET

This is the most dangerous time for our planet. We can’t go on ignoring inequality, because we have the means to destroy our world but not to escape it. 

Stephen Hawking

As a theoretical physicist based in Cambridge, I have lived my life in an extraordinarily privileged bubble. Cambridge is an unusual town, centred around one of the world’s great universities. Within that town, the scientific community that I became part of in my 20s is even more rarefied.

And within that scientific community, the small group of international theoretical physicists with whom I have spent my working life might sometimes be tempted to regard themselves as the pinnacle. In addition to this, with the celebrity that has come with my books, and the isolation imposed by my illness, I feel as though my ivory tower is getting taller.

So the recent apparent rejection of the elites in both America and Britain is surely aimed at me, as much as anyone. Whatever we might think about the decision by the British electorate to reject membership of the European Union and by the American public to embrace Donald Trump as their next president, there is no doubt in the minds of commentators that this was a cry of anger by people who felt they had been abandoned by their leaders.

It was, everyone seems to agree, the moment when the forgotten spoke, finding their voices to reject the advice and guidance of experts and the elite everywhere.

What matters now, far more than the victories by Brexit and Trump, is how the elites react
I am no exception to this rule. I warned before the Brexit vote that it would damage scientific research in Britain, that a vote to leave would be a step backward, and the electorate – or at least a sufficiently significant proportion of it – took no more notice of me than any of the other political leaders, trade unionists, artists, scientists, businessmen and celebrities who all gave the same unheeded advice to the rest of the country.

What matters now, far more than the choices made by these two electorates, is how the elites react. Should we, in turn, reject these votes as outpourings of crude populism that fail to take account of the facts, and attempt to circumvent or circumscribe the choices that they represent? I would argue that this would be a terrible mistake.

The concerns underlying these votes about the economic consequences of globalisation and accelerating technological change are absolutely understandable. The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining.

This in turn will accelerate the already widening economic inequality around the world. The internet and the platforms that it makes possible allow very small groups of individuals to make enormous profits while employing very few people. This is inevitable, it is progress, but it is also socially destructive.

We need to put this alongside the financial crash, which brought home to people that a very few individuals working in the financial sector can accrue huge rewards and that the rest of us underwrite that success and pick up the bill when their greed leads us astray. So taken together we are living in a world of widening, not diminishing, financial inequality, in which many people can see not just their standard of living, but their ability to earn a living at all, disappearing. It is no wonder then that they are searching for a new deal, which Trump and Brexit might have appeared to represent.

‘In sub-Saharan Africa there are more people with a telephone than access to clean water.’

Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer

It is also the case that another unintended consequence of the global spread of the internet and social media is that the stark nature of these inequalities is far more apparent than it has been in the past. For me, the ability to use technology to communicate has been a liberating and positive experience. Without it, I would not have been able to continue working these many years past.

But it also means that the lives of the richest people in the most prosperous parts of the world are agonisingly visible to anyone, however poor, who has access to a phone. And since there are now more people with a telephone than access to clean water in sub-Saharan Africa, this will shortly mean nearly everyone on our increasingly crowded planet will not be able to escape the inequality.

The consequences of this are plain to see: the rural poor flock to cities, to shanty towns, driven by hope. And then often, finding that the Instagram nirvana is not available there, they seek it overseas, joining the ever greater numbers of economic migrants in search of a better life. These migrants in turn place new demands on the infrastructures and economies of the countries in which they arrive, undermining tolerance and further fuelling political populism.

For me, the really concerning aspect of this is that now, more than at any time in our history, our species needs to work together. We face awesome environmental challenges: climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans.

Together, they are a reminder that we are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity. We now have the technology to destroy the planet on which we live, but have not yet developed the ability to escape it. Perhaps in a few hundred years, we will have established human colonies amid the stars, but right now we only have one planet, and we need to work together to protect it.

To do that, we need to break down, not build up, barriers within and between nations. If we are to stand a chance of doing that, the world’s leaders need to acknowledge that they have failed and are failing the many. With resources increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, we are going to have to learn to share far more than at present.

With not only jobs but entire industries disappearing, we must help people to retrain for a new world and support them financially while they do so. If communities and economies cannot cope with current levels of migration, we must do more to encourage global development, as that is the only way that the migratory millions will be persuaded to seek their future at home.

We can do this, I am an enormous optimist for my species; but it will require the elites, from London to Harvard, from Cambridge to Hollywood, to learn the lessons of the past year. To learn above all a measure of humility.

• The writer launched www.unlimited.world earlier this year

{ https://www.theguardian.com/international }

21-01-2018 om 18:05 geschreven door peter  

NASA Should Start Looking For Viruses On Other Planets, Scientists Suggest

Forget about aliens, let’s start searching for viruses in our Solar System. Although scientists have been studying the infectious agents for decades, there’s still much to be learned about them and whether they exist in space or not. Now, a group of scientists are proposing we seek more answers.

“[Viruses] are believed to have played important roles in the origin and evolution of life,” biologists from Portland State University (PSU) wrote in a paper published in the journal Astrobiology. “However, there is yet very little focus on viruses in astrobiology.”

Related: Is It Time for a Universal Influenza Vaccine? The Virus Is Getting Deadlier

NASA scientists who study astrobiology explore three main questions, “How does life begin and evolve? Does life exist elsewhere in the Universe? What is the future of life on Earth and beyond?” according to the space agency’s 2015 Astrobiological Strategy. But, viruses are vaguely mentioned throughout the plan, therefore, PSU researchers have proposed we further explore “astrovirology.”

Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now

A crecent moon is seen near the planets Venus (C, bottom) and Jupiter (R) in this rare alignment December 1, 2008 from New York. 

Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

Study author Kenneth Stedman, a biology professor at PSU, and his colleagues recommend NASA and other space agencies start their search for viruses by examining liquid samples from Saturn and Jupiter’s moons.​ 

Related: Nine-Year-Old Found In Pool of Own Blood Dies From Tick-Borne Virus

Additionally, the team suggests that they develop tools to discover viruses in ancient deposits on Earth and Mars, and examine whether the particles could survive in space.

“We need to further develop current tools, either put [an electron microscope] on a spacecraft or develop other microscopic technologies that can detect molecules, not just atoms at nanometer resolution,” Stedman told Gizmodo.

Although “astrovirology” isn’t a widely recognized field, Stedman isn’t the first person to suggest that viruses exist in abundance in space. Back in 2013, Dale Griffin, a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey, recommended scientists take a look at whether viruses exist behind our planet. But, he suggests proceeding with caution.

“We should be looking for viruses in our quest for extraterrestrial life, and it may be that viruses pose no risk to human planetary exploration,” Griffin wrote in an article published in Astrobiology. “However, the possibility of risk exists, and our potential contact with them should be treated accordingly.” 

{ http://www.puredailynews.com/ }

21-01-2018 om 17:37 geschreven door peter